


Shades of Valhalla

by JenniferThornbeck



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death from Cancer, F/M, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Memories, Valhalla, Viking Mythology - Freeform, caterpillar into a butterfly, dealing with death, love letter, one last message, sensitive and shy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22171621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferThornbeck/pseuds/JenniferThornbeck
Summary: Claire comes to some type of closure after losing Nick.





	Shades of Valhalla

****

The wind brought the smell of burnt paper, leather and an odd scent that I couldn’t place – some chemical from the clothes probably.

Memories, laughter, hopes and dreams. All gone now.

Nick, a history buff, had been a great admirer of the Vikings, who lay their dead warriors in boats to burn its way to Valhalla, had wanted me to do the same with his things. Clothes, unfinished work, everything but the furniture that had gone to charity. Against his wishes, I had kept one picture of him.

“No, Claire, nothing.” he had said two weeks before he died. “I want to leave nothing behind; no memory of me. Like I was never here at all. We all should – the earth eradicates our presence soon enough anyway.” He ended in barely a whisper and gazed out of the window, leaving me behind emotionally as he always had done.

So I promised to burn everything.

Nick had burst into my life during my “unguided period” as he later termed it. I had been working at a coffee shop when he entered, irritated as he asked for a cup of tea. I brought it to his table and turned to leave.

“You – come here”, he ordered imperiously. “Read this and give me your opinion.” 

Glancing over my shoulder at my supervisor, I wondered if I would get into trouble standing there talking to a customer.

The man’s now impatient voice invaded my thoughts again, seeming to read my mind.

“Think for yourself, damn it! I’m asking for an opinion – not an end to world hunger. It will only take a few minutes.”

I stared into his eyes. Dark, intelligent, I thought I could also see some sensitivity there.

“Don’t just stand there gawking – here.” 

Amending my earlier thoughts to just a tiny amount of sensitivity, I took the pages of thick paper he had thrust in my face. 

It was a poem, filled with all the bitterness of life, the fire and passion of love, the devastation of loss.

I could feel the words burn inside me, my chest clench as if it had all happened to me, had been my life put to paper.

I looked up into his eyes and said simply “It’s beautiful.”

“Is that all?” he frowned.

“No, I feel it,” pausing, I struggled to find the right words. “I can feel the pain, the ecstasy of it all. You make the reader feel what you feel.”

My face burned as I thought that I had laid myself bare to this stranger.

A small group of college students, regulars, walked in the door and I left him there still looking at his poem.

Half an hour later, he called out to me again as I passed.

“Another cup of tea, please.”

I quickly brought it and left, unwilling to give more of myself to this man.

That was 15 years ago.

Pointing my toe, I tapped the edge of the boat. It bobbed a little, then slowly made its way off the bank. Caught up in the current, the boat began to move slowly away, its cargo burning.

As the small vessel passed a tree, I suddenly couldn’t beat to let it out of my sight. Following its progress and making sure that I didn’t fall, Nick’s bier came to a narrowing in the stream and stopped, held back by an unseen obstacle.

The fire inside began to burn more aggressively now, one flame arching a few feet into the air. The boat and trees behind it looked hazy from the smoke. Like a dream.

“When are you ever going to get the confidence to go after what you want, caterpillar? You disparage everything you can do.”

He lit his cigarette and stared at me – that stare that always divined my thoughts as though I were a crystal ball.

Pretending to find the traffic outside fascinating, I did my best to ignore him.

“– the world is full of confident people with no real talent. But you have –“

I closed my eyes and meditated on what he had said. It wasn’t that I didn’t know I had ability; it was just hard – no impossible – for me to believe in it enough to try and do something with my abilities.

I had never been aggressive or competitive that way. So I had sat on the sidelines of life. Too afraid to risk anything.

Opening my eyes, I saw the boat. A few tongues of flame now stroked the rim of the side, a brief wind teasing it as it began to catch the flames. The boat was still stuck and while I watched it, words from past conversations with Nick flooded through my mind. A hole appeared in the front of the boat. Near the water, a tiny flame peered at its reflection in the stream. Bobbing a little, a tear of water hissed out of the hole and the boat burned on.

Looking around I picked up a long branch and prodded at the little rowboat several times, but it wouldn’t move. I leaned forward and thrust a few jabs with the branch, barely saving myself from joining the boat. It caught the current once more and floated off again. Standing up, I slowly followed on land.

“Love Claire?” That’s so archaic. So many people come in and out of our lives. Very few are constants. I’ve only known you eight months – how can that be love?”

Before he had finished, I had stopped listening and just smiled at him vaguely. I took a sip of wine and began to translate an Edith Piaf song in my head.

Something tapped my hand. I glanced over: Nick.

“Hey caterpillar, what do you think about a quick trip to San Francisco this weekend? I’m thinking of setting my next novel there. Tamsin’s been eager for us to visit for weeks now.”

I nodded and smiled again. The flick of the lighter lit up the sharp planes of his face. He exhaled and gave me a brief smile, completely unaware of the stabbing pain in my chest.

A childs’ laughter broke my reverie. Turning I saw a dark haired little girl running towards a tall woman in a long black dress, her hair covered. She picked up the child and kissed her soft, chubby cheek and carried her over to the slide.

A tear touched my lips.

I turned back to Nick’s boat. Burning steadily still, it had floated past where I stood. Walking closer, I could now hear the crackle of the fire. Suddenly furious, I cursed Nick for leaving me alone like this. I didn’t even have the memories of a long, happy marriage to cherish. Or children.

We had discussed it once, before he had become ill. I had wanted a church wedding with all our friends and family. Small, but traditional. He wanted just us alone, saying our vows by the ocean he loved so much.

Then the news. Two weeks later, he told me that he hadn’t been feeling well and had gone to the doctor three months earlier. After seeing several specialists, he had known for certain.

“Inoperable cancer,” he stated bluntly, sending my mind reeling.

Devastated and hurt, I wondered; why hadn’t he told me sooner? I could have been there with him at the doctors, held hand, offered comfort. Given my love.

“Why?’ I whispered.

He glanced at my face and knew what I was asking.

“It was easier going alone. No tears, no dramatics.”

Even when he was dying, he still had no emotion.

So there ended any thought of marriage. He had laughed it off when I suggested it. “You’re too young to be a widow, caterpillar. You belong to the living. I’m dead.”

My eyes blurred with orange. The rowboat.

As I watched, a small spark flew up as the breeze caught it. The sides of the boat now embracing the flames as a lover, even though it meant its destruction. There something fascinating about a fire. It at times could look beautiful, but a terrible and devastating beauty.

Nick did try some natural therapy, but the cancer wanted to survive more than he did, I guess. Or it was his time to go or whatever it is you say or think when someone you love is dying.

He lived four months longer. I took off work to care for him, and he spent more and more of his time at the window seat. He lost interest in everything and just wasted away as he stared out the window as life went on outside.

The little boat caught the current once again, floating quickly away from my sight. I ran to keep up, still unable to let go.

I put my hand in my jacket pocket to reach for my gloves and felt something else. Pulling it out, I glanced at a small postcard of San Francisco Bay. Nick’s favorite place in the world. I smiled, taking a quick breath as the sound caught in my throat, then began to cry.

He’d never go there again. Not with me. Crumpling up the card, I noticed some writing on the back. Nick’s writing.

“Claire, Sorry for all this, but I am glad you were with me in the end. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I love you. Live a happy life. Nick.”

I felt numb. Smoothing the card a little, I ran his fingertips over his name and took a deep breath, putting the postcard back into my pocket. 

Nick’s boat had moved far from where I was and I ran to catch up with it again. It was burning strongly now, the flames hissing as the water tried to put it, to no avail.

I stopped, watching the boat burn away on the water. The frame almost gone now. What was left went under the water, a few ripples and bubbles left in its wake.

I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough to replay every word, every look and every touch I had ever shared with Nick. Long enough to become cold after the sun set. Long enough to know that the symbolic burning of Nicks’ belongings make me almost wish it had been a suttee. Long enough for me to know that I was of the living and I had to do what Nick had told me to do. The half-moon rose and I reached into my pocket, my hand on the postcard. I took comfort in his last communiqué. The closest thing to a love letter I had ever received from him.

A wistful smile passed my lips as I walked slowly up the hill.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this short story while taking a writing course. Comments welcome :)


End file.
